Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I went over to Andy Revkin’s site to be entertained by his latest fulminations against “denialists”. Revkin, as you may remember from the Climategate emails, was the main go-to media lapdog for the various unindicted Climategate co-conspirators. His latest post is a bizarre mishmash of allegations, bogus claims, and name-calling. Most appositely, given his history of blind obedience to his oh-so-scientific masters like Phil Jones and Michael Mann, he illustrated it with this graphic which presumably shows Revkin’s response when confronted with actual science:
I was most amused, however, to discover what this man who claims to be reporting on science has to say about the reason for the very existence of his blog:
By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, which moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section in 2010, Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracks relevant developments from suburbia to Siberia.
Really? Let’s look at the numbers put up by this charmingly innumerate fellow.
Here’s how the numbers play out. I agree with Revkin, most authorities say the population will top out at about nine billion around 2050. I happen to think they are right, not because they are authorities, but because that’s what my own analysis of the numbers has to say. Hey, color me skeptical, I don’t believe anyone’s numbers.
In any case, here are the FAO numbers for today’s population:
PRESENT GLOBAL POPULATION: 7.24 billion
PRESENT CHINESE POPULATION: 1.40 billion
PRESENT POPULATION PLUS REVKIN’S “TWO CHINAS”: 10.04 billion
So Revkin is only in error by one billion people … but heck, given his historic defense of scientific malfeasance, and his ludicrous claims about “denialists” and “denialism”, that bit of innumeracy pales by comparison.
Despite that, Revkin’s error is not insignificant. From the present population to 9 billion, where the population is likely to stabilize, is an increase of about 1.75 billion. IF Revkin’s claims about two Chinas were correct, the increase would be 2.8 billion. So his error is 2.8/1.75 -1, which means his numbers are 60% too high. A 60% overestimation of the size of the problem that he claims to be deeply concerned about? … bad journalist, no cookies.
Now, for most science reporters, a 60% error in estimating the remaining work to be done on the problem they’ve identified as the most important of all issues, the problem they say is the raison d’etre of their entire blog … well, that kind of a mistake would matter to them. They would hasten to correct an error of that magnitude. For Revkin, however, a 60% error is lost in the noise of the rest of his ludicrous ideas and his endless advocacy for shonky science …
My prediction? He’ll leave the bogus alarmist population claim up there on his blog, simply because a “denialist” pointed out his grade-school arithmetic error, and changing even a jot or a tittle in response to a “denialist” like myself would be an unacceptable admission of fallibility …
My advice?
Don’t get your scientific info from a man who can’t add to ten … particularly when he is nothing but a pathetic PR shill for bogus science and disingenuous scientists …
w.
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Ouch! That’s going to leave a mark.
Climate Change is People!
He’s a misanthrope and social darwinist. His hate of people and freedom is plain to see. He won’t come out and directly say it, but he wants the dirty masses to be rounded up, sterilized and penned up in the cities so the enlightened few can protect gaia from the mouth breathers..
I dunno, seems like his math is pretty consistent with the ‘science’ he supports.
Ouch! That last para stings!
Willis!, stop beating around the bush. Tell us what you really think!
In Dot Earth, which moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section in 2010,
I think this is the real message here, Dot Earth isn’t news it’s only opinion.
Andrew should watch this excellent documentary where Hans Rosling corrects some widespread misunderstandings about population growth http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population/
Global swarming.
Willis
Are you being a bit easy on our beloved Revkin; I suggest so .
He is wildly off the mark, despite his bloviation.
Have a very decent week-end.
Auto
The population control activists have a ready-made solution in Dan Brown’s “Inferno” novel. They just need to replicate that “virus programming thing,” and make one-third of the world sterile.
Revkin meant adding another China to the PRESENT GLOBAL POPULATION, which adds up to two China’s seeing as the PRESENT GLOBAL POPULATION includes China.
PRESENT GLOBAL POPULATION INCLUDING CHINA: 7.24 billion
PLUS EXTRA CHINESE POPULATION: 1.40 billion
PRESENT POPULATION PLUS REVKIN’S EXTRA CHINA : 8.64 billion
The sad part of it is, Andrew Revkin is one of the least worst of the alarmists.
Revkin is a perfect illustration of who the REAL denialists are: the alarmists who ignore the new Holocaust caused by carbon policies (33,000 dead from hypothermia in the UK last year, 2 million Africans dead from starvation thanks to the ethanol program).
@Charles Battig – this is also the program proposed by der Fuehrer’s witchcraft advisor, John Holdren, except that he wants to knock the population down to 1 billion.
Global warming alarmism is MASS MURDER. Global warming alarmism is GENOCIDE.
No Martin, he says “adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today”. That is: Pw + 2Pc = 9.
The problem with the statement is that both world and Chinese populations are trending with time at different rates. The idea that Pw + 2Pc = 9 was true ~10 years ago but not today. Such a caviler blog should be more careful.
Reading the comments posted on Revkin’s article give one hope that people are waking up. Revkin should be ashamed.
Martin, are you suggesting that he can add but that he can’t write coherently?
Yep, the picture at the top says it all. Don’t see. don’t hear, but say anything you think the MSM or the general populace will swallow.
Willis, I can show you the slides from my “World Food Needs: 2050” presentations from 1994 with a “now accurate” 9 billion population peak forecast based on nothing more than that the previous 20 years’ worth of “projections” (note, NOT predictions) from the UN Population division had always overestimated. Thus, I assumed their low projection was slightly optimistic. But then I realized that the UN pop div always assumed that EVERY country would stabilize at a replacement fertility rate (2.1 children per couple). Every country above would make a “soft landing” at 2.1 and every country below (the entire Western world) would rise back up to 2.1 from 1.5-1.9.
Reality is that most Western nations have stabilized at below-replacement fertility, hence the 9 billion peak.
1997 was the year of fastest population growth, with fewer people added to the planet every year since.
Alex Avery
Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues
Excellent post Willis,
Just in case someone has not seen this yet;
http://drtimball.com/2014/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/
And my very first speech as a Hudson guy was in early 1995 in Seskatchewan and I followed the most entertaining speaker I’d ever seen (filled with facts and jokes) and his name was Dr. Tim Ball. He told the crowd that the global warming hysteria was not rooted in science and they loved him.
I sucked. But I eventually got better. Dr. Tim Ball: Thanks for the most awesome example to try to live up to, sir!
Alex Avery
Way too kind.
Revkin is the definition of; Useful idiot.
Willis, I hope you realize you probably bought Andy’s blog another stay of execution by this traffic you have directed to his site.
I stopped visiting some time ago, as the man blithers.
I still wonder if he is wilfully blind or definitely deluded.
However the more important point, this fear of humanity, our numbers will kill us all, is the core of CAGW.
Every one of these concerned citizens I personally have argued with, dismiss the abuse of science, claim the social good of restricting energy for human use justifies the lies and when pinned down, to a man/woman have then launched into a tirade about the population explosion.
And justify the destruction, carbon dioxide mitigation policies, have wrought on the poor as necessary to save the atmosphere.
A depiction of smug believers of eugenics, secure in the righteousness of their cause, would hardly be satire..
i detect a tipping point.
first spencer, now willis.
they are no longer constraining themselves to polite disagreement- they are wholeheartedly damning the liars and calling them out.
my cup of optimism half full, at last.
i so devoutly pine for climate fraudster head.on.a.post that my schadenfreude gland is tumescent with anticipation.
“…particularly when he is nothing but a pathetic PR shill for bogus science and disingenuous scientists …”
Seems that everyone you disagree with is a contemptible slime, Willis. I disagree with Revkin on just about everything, and marvel at his apparent credulity in climate matters, but on a personal level he’s never struck me as anything but sincere and well meaning. For a warmist, he’s quite willing and open to discuss opposing points of view.
Worth reading this article by Julian Simon again when you come up with lunacy like Revkins.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html It puts a few things in perspective.
Already the new global scare takes shape, the BBC had a programme with a world famous statistician Hans Rosling i think? which states the population will level and then fall!